§131. Defective Comparison
Several adjectives lack the Comparative or the Superlative:—
a. The Comparative is rare or wanting in the following:—
| bellus, | inclutus (or inclitus), | novus, |
| caesius, | invictus, | pius, |
| falsus, | invītus, | sacer, |
| fīdus (with its compounds), | meritus, | vafer. |
b. The Superlative is wanting in many adjectives in -ilis or -bilis (as, agilis, probābilis), and in the following:—
| āctuōsus | exīlis | prōclīvis | surdus |
| agrestis | ingēns | propinquus | taciturnus |
| alacer | iēiūnus | satur | tempestīvus |
| arcānus | longinquus | sēgnis | teres |
| caecus | oblīquus | sērus | vīcīnus |
| diūturnus | opīmus | supīnus |
c. From iuvenis, youth, senex, old man (cf. § 122. d), are formed the comparatives iūnior, younger, senior, older. For these, however, minor nātū and mâior nātū are sometimes used ( nātū being often omitted).
The superlative is regularly expressed by minimus and maximus, with or without nātū.
d. Many adjectives (as aureus, golden) are from their meaning incapable of comparison.
J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn, 1903). Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.